| Reviewer:
Kelly K '09 A day after the Japanese hit Pearl
Harbor on December 7, 1941 the United States started to place anyone who looked Japanese
in internment camps. The camps were in California, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona,
Colorado and Arkansas. In San Francisco, California there was a camp called Mirror
Lake which was out in the middle of nowhere and where this book takes place.
One of the first families at this internment camp is the
Uchida family. There is a mother, a father, a son named Ben, and a daughter named
Naomi. The Uchida's have to burn all of their children's things and their own things
so the government will not take any of it away from them.
The Uchida's go to the camp on a train. There are big
electrical fences curved into the inside of the camp so no one can get out and guard
towers with lots of security. The day the Uchida's move into their room, which is
Block B, Barrack 14, Apartment E, they find out they have no blankets and they know it is
very cold at night. Mrs. Uchida sends Naomi out to find some blankets. Naomi
asks a boy who looks about her age if he has any blankets she can borrow. He runs
inside to get her some and when he comes back he introduces himself as Mike.
One day Mike sits down at lunch next to Naomi and
Ben. Ben thinks he is going to talk to Naomi, but he asks Ben if he wants to be on
Block B's baseball team . Ben says yes. Block B's team practices against Block
D and Block B wins 12-0. They also play Block K and win. Before Ben goes up to
hit the guard shouts out to him saying, "Hit a homer, boy!" and he does.
Some of the kids on his baseball team call Mirror Lake a barbed wire city or prison
camp. Ben doesn't seem to mind the names though.
He likes the people they are sharing their room with
because the father is a carpenter who builds them a table and chairs and a medicine
cabinet. All of a sudden a package arrives on August 3rd from their neighbors
who are keeping their belongings safe. Mama had asked their neighbors to send their
hot plate so she can make tea. Mama is also trying not to spend much money because
she doesn't know when papa is going to come back from his camp.
The parents at Mirror Lake have a meeting and they
decide to make the kids go to school, but they can't wear blue jeans. Ben's
teacher's name is Mrs. Kroll and there are sixty kids in his class. There are no
blackboards, desks, books or tables. They have to pull benches from the lunch hall
to use as tables and they have to sit on the ground. Then one week the parents get
together again to decide if their kids can wear blue jeans. You will have to read the book
to find out what happens next!
Winter 2002 |
